ATD: Catalog Excerpt "an antiquated Colt"

[davemarc]

Building on Paul Mackin's comments, I'll add here that while young Willis's
firearm is "an antiquated Colt"--certainly a revolver--it's quite possible
that Jimmy Drop is handling a state-of-the-art automatic handgun.

The year is 1899, seven years into what the good ol' History Detectives
website labels the "Advent of automatic handguns: "The first automatic
pistol was created by Joseph Laumann in 1892. But the Borchardt pistol of
1893 was the first automatic with a separate magazine in the grip, and this
remains the defining feature of the breed. More automatics came in rapid
succession, including Browning, Luger, Mauser, and Colt models. By the turn
of the century, just 8 years after Laumann, automatics were firmly
established."
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/techniques/weapon_feature.html

So perhaps Drop perceives the technological obsolescence of the Colt as well
as its age and young Willis's paleness and shakiness. Eight years earlier, a
revolver wouldn't have looked as old.

d.